C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

Hey Steve, I was hoping for some fixes to PD in C#. Currently, and I know that this doesn't effect you as much, but PD falls off pretty hard in the late game. From some number crunching, it appears that the new missiles changes don't fix this issue either. Would it be possible to get a better PD balance in the late game to compensate for this?

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

Also, from what I can recall, tracking speed bonuses against missiles currently don't function at all. Is there any news on if/when that will be fixed?

[Steve Walmsley]

Hey Steve, I was hoping for some fixes to PD in C#. Currently, and I know that this doesn't effect you as much, but PD falls off pretty hard in the late game. From some number crunching, it appears that the new missiles changes don't fix this issue either. Would it be possible to get a better PD balance in the late game to compensate for this?

Can you provide some numbers for how it falls off?

[Cyborg29]

Hello, I would like to suggest the addition of an option to shut down individual shipyard slipways, or simply the shipyards themselves (possibly by adding new options to the industrial sector shutdown screens). 

[Steve Walmsley]

Hello, I would like to suggest the addition of an option to shut down individual shipyard slipways, or simply the shipyards themselves (possibly by adding new options to the industrial sector shutdown screens).

You can shutdown shipyards in VB6 by towing them to a nearby moon. C# at the moment doesn't have the code to shut down anything. I'll look at various options when I get to this area. I've wondering if the ability to just shut down large sections of industry and then re-open them is a little too easy and there should be other options for handling a lack of workers.

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

Hey Steve, I was hoping for some fixes to PD in C#. Currently, and I know that this doesn't effect you as much, but PD falls off pretty hard in the late game. From some number crunching, it appears that the new missiles changes don't fix this issue either. Would it be possible to get a better PD balance in the late game to compensate for this?

Can you provide some numbers for how it falls off?

I came prepared. More specifically, PD gets worse than AMMs. It also makes a lot of sense that the first time AMMs are better than PD is the tech level after you said generally stop playing (Magneto-Plasma).

Not sure if Image links work, but I'll try it

This assumes the "best" AMM and the "best" PD for that tech level

Without any ECCM on the AMMs: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/402321466839793664/530507553273020426/unknown.png

With 0.25 MSP ECCM on the AMMs: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/402321466839793664/530507750179078154/unknown.png

This tracks the maximum target speed that an AMM or PD can hit whilst still retaining a 100% hit rate.

At early levels (convential-Ion) PD dominates, with over 2x the maximum speed possible to hit than AMMs at Ion (7022.7 km/s for AMMs, 16000 km/s for PD.) At Magneto-Plasma, AMMs over double in speed, jumping to 14694.44 km/s, not far off from the PDs maximum of 20000 km/s. Since this is where you said you generally stop, it seems pretty balanced. However, If you go to the next tech level (Internal Confinement), AMMs once again double in max speed, jumping to 28518.75 km/s, as compared to PDs 25000 km/s maximum.

AMMs only continue to grow more powerful, gaining roughly 50% speed per tech level afterwards (46k, 74k, 118k, 172k, 244k) capping out at 299k km/s at Beam Core Anti-matter. PD, comparatively, gains exponential growth, but at an extremely slow rate.

 At Magnetic Confinement, PD has a max speed of 32k, then 40k, 50k, 64k, 80k, and 100k at Beam Core Anti-matter. As you can see, PD is nearly 3x as slow as AMMs at the higher techs.

 Now I know that AMMs have to deal with ammunition, but I have never found it particularly hard to keep my missile ships supplied, and even with that constraint 3x speed seems a bit ridiculous. It also doesn't help that the racial Tracking Speed Bonus vs. Missiles techs do absolutely nothing as of right now.

[Steve Walmsley]

The tracking speeds roughly keep pace with engine power, otherwise it would become easier to hit opposing ships with beam weapons. It seems to be that AMMs benefit from increased agility at higher TLs, more than PD is penalised. Also, missiles in general gain from the ramp up in max power mod after the early levels.

Increasing tracking speed would make it very easy to build beam-only fleets that are immune to missiles (which is already not that difficult). AMMs should become less effective anyway in C# Aurora due to the missile ECM changes, so I think I need to see how that works out in practice before looking at any agility reductions. I might also lower the RP costs for the power boosts to give early AMMs some help.

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

The tracking speeds roughly keep pace with engine power, otherwise it would become easier to hit opposing ships with beam weapons. It seems to be that AMMs benefit from increased agility at higher TLs, more than PD is penalised. Also, missiles in general gain from the ramp up in max power mod after the early levels.

Increasing tracking speed would make it very easy to build beam-only fleets that are immune to missiles (which is already not that difficult). AMMs should become less effective anyway in C# Aurora due to the missile ECM changes, so I think I need to see how that works out in practice before looking at any agility reductions. I might also lower the RP costs for the power boosts to give early AMMs some help.

We've had some discussions and crunched some numbers with what we know about missiles in C#, and from what Iceranger has found it doesn't seem to impact AMMs much, if at all. I agree that increasing tracking speed as a whole would make beam fleets really good, but a buff to only PD would be very helpful. Like I've said, the tracking speed bonus vs. missiles currently doesn't do anything, so that's a big hit to non-AMM PD. Things like that, things that can only apply to PD, could make PD better as a whole.

[Steve Walmsley]

We've had some discussions and crunched some numbers with what we know about missiles in C#, and from what Iceranger has found it doesn't seem to impact AMMs much, if at all. I agree that increasing tracking speed as a whole would make beam fleets really good, but a buff to only PD would be very helpful. Like I've said, the tracking speed bonus vs. missiles currently doesn't do anything, so that's a big hit to non-AMM PD. Things like that, things that can only apply to PD, could make PD better as a whole.

Given that AMMs need on-board ECCM now to be fully effective against ECM-equipped missiles (which are better than in VB6), I'm not sure how it doesn't impact them.

Before I make any significant changes to point defence or tracking speeds, I need to play test. A lot has changed.

[Scandinavian]

I'm not sure "max speed for 100 % hit chance" is the relevant scaling condition.

It seems like what you want is more like "total HS needed to give >= 95 % chance of interdicting a missile of same tech level with 50 % of mass devoted to engines and max missile ECM." For that scaling, you also need to consider fire rate (scales for gauss PD with capacitor recharge rate, not for missile PD beyond lvl. 6 where a size 1 launcher has a 5 s cycle rate). (In principle also size of weapon and fire control, but those change very slowly if at all relative to the other parameters.)

And tracking time vs. missiles not working seems like a bug, not a feature. Assuming that's fixed, that should be a significant help to beam PD, particularly at higher tech levels. (Also, how is it supposed to work? Is the tracking bonus additive to the hit chance, or multiplicative?)

Re: ECCM not showing up in Lucy's and Iceranger's calculations: ECCM requirements for AMMs impact absolute efficiency, but because ECCM caps at 0.25 MSP, my intuition is (though I have not proven) that in optimal AMM composition ECCM + warhead package converges on 0.25 MSP in the high-tech limit, and the closer you get to that limit, the less it impacts the scaling properties. So you should be seeing the same basic progression even if the absolute numbers change.

[Lucifer, the Morning Star]

I'm not saying that the tests are the "best" way to prove it, but it at least puts numbers behind the claim. As a general rule, the more tech lines a weapon has, the better it is at each tech level, and since missiles have the most options it makes sense that they are more powerful as a base line. Since I don't think Steve is planning on adding modularity to non-missiles, missiles still hold the edge in that category. My point was simply that PD needs a buff. That can be as simple as fixing the tracking speed bug, but since I haven't seen a mention of it in the listed changes I felt it necessary to bring up.

Edit: I believe the tracking speed is supposed to be additive, as it's 20%, 40%, etc. Also, the missile charts with ECCM were there to show how missiles fare with the new missile update, and they still hold an overwhelming advantage. (Each missile came with 0.25 ECCM)

[clement]

Hello, I would like to suggest the addition of an option to shut down individual shipyard slipways, or simply the shipyards themselves (possibly by adding new options to the industrial sector shutdown screens).

You can shutdown shipyards in VB6 by towing them to a nearby moon. C# at the moment doesn't have the code to shut down anything. I'll look at various options when I get to this area. I've wondering if the ability to just shut down large sections of industry and then re-open them is a little too easy and there should be other options for handling a lack of workers.

You could allow the prioritization of industry with workers being allocated based on that list. With some minimum percentage of workers going to each industry. There will always be works at that fuel refinery but if it is lowest priority it may only get 10%, while mines, factories and ship yards are all within a few percentage points of 100% since they are at the top of the list.

[Iceranger]

We've had some discussions and crunched some numbers with what we know about missiles in C#, and from what Iceranger has found it doesn't seem to impact AMMs much, if at all. I agree that increasing tracking speed as a whole would make beam fleets really good, but a buff to only PD would be very helpful. Like I've said, the tracking speed bonus vs. missiles currently doesn't do anything, so that's a big hit to non-AMM PD. Things like that, things that can only apply to PD, could make PD better as a whole.

Given that AMMs need on-board ECCM now to be fully effective against ECM-equipped missiles (which are better than in VB6), I'm not sure how it doesn't impact them.

Before I make any significant changes to point defence or tracking speeds, I need to play test. A lot has changed.

Hi Steve, just want to point out that in the second table https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/402321466839793664/530507750179078154/unknown.png shown in Lucifier's post, the AMMs are assumed to have 0.25MSP dedicated to ECCM based on C# change list. Due to this, overall the AMM effectiveness is tuned down. They still have much better tracking speed than turrets at higher tech level, and it increases drastically in later tech levels.

[alex_brunius]

The tracking speeds roughly keep pace with engine power, otherwise it would become easier to hit opposing ships with beam weapons. It seems to be that AMMs benefit from increased agility at higher TLs, more than PD is penalised. Also, missiles in general gain from the ramp up in max power mod after the early levels.

Increasing tracking speed would make it very easy to build beam-only fleets that are immune to missiles (which is already not that difficult). AMMs should become less effective anyway in C# Aurora due to the missile ECM changes, so I think I need to see how that works out in practice before looking at any agility reductions. I might also lower the RP costs for the power boosts to give early AMMs some help.

If there is a need, perhaps it could be balanced in the other end by having sufficiently advanced PDs shrink in size per shot increasing their effective volume of fire to compensate.

Gauss cannons already have a max Rate of Fire of 6, and I'm not sure how that impacts the numbers here.

But basically make reduced size lasers more competitive ( so that high enough recharge allows fitting several of them in the same space still on a 5 second reload ) or something like that.

[King-Salomon]

hmm... maybe it would be wiser to re-balance just AMM's instead of beam-weapons if Steve's test-games show that it really should be rebalanced...

maybe something like this:

1) missiles are not able to intercept other missiles as they are too small and too fast to be controlled from a ship and be able to hit a moving (and maneuvering) object as small and fast as a missile

2) missiles with an extra 0.25 or 0.5 MSP (question of balancing) sensormodule (or targeting AI etc... no special tech, just a module) are able to intercept other missiles

3) the electronic in the special module does not interact well with warheads, so a AMM (aka with the special module) is not allowed to have a warhead and so has no use against ships at all

4) missiles being positive intercepted are destroyed even if the AMM does not have a warhead

...

I am no expert in Aurora but I guess this would lead to

a) less chance to hit or less range in AMM (depending on how much space the special module uses even after reducing the warhead) - I guess  this might lead to 2 different types of AMM's - a longer range "first line of defence" AMM with low accuracy and a second "final line of defence" AMM with low range and higher accuracy (stronger engine, less fuel)
(this might mean that size 2 AMM's might come up but I am ok with this as this would result in lesser (but more potent) AMM beeing launched per salvo - maybe resulting in "first line of defence" size 2 AMM and escorts and "final line of defence" size 1 AMM escorts... who knwos...)

b) no use of AMM's as offensive weapon - with also would lead to 2 different type of missiles - AMM's and special Size 1 offensive missiles

this would not reduce (likely even make it worse) the high increase of usability for AMM's with higher tech but I am OK with this as low tech AMM's really should be not really that powerful and even with high tech AMM's would be less good as now.
as they might be than unbalanced (weaker) to other PD systems I am thinking: AMM-tech does not require any (much) research for itself.. it is mostly a byproduct of missile research so I would have no problem they being weaker as PD as this would make the other weapon-techs even more worthwile as they might be in C# at the moment

...

but as I said, I am no expert in Aurora so I might be completly wrong... guess depends on Steve's inside and how his testing looks like in practice and not only the numbers on paper...